PetroChina

PetroChina is China's second-largest oil and gas company, listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai with the Chinese government holding a majority stake through CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation). Like Sinopec, it has sustained Iran crude procurement throughout the 2026 US-Iran conflict while OFAC's successive May SDN rounds — 11, 12, 15 and 19 May — left all mainland Chinese refineries undesignated.

PetroChina is integrated across exploration, production, refining, chemicals, and retail. Its parent CNPC is one of the five refineries that MOFCOM's 2 May 2026 Blocking Rules placed under explicit legal protection, barring compliance with OFAC's Iran sanctions designations and creating an Article 9 private right of action against any Chinese firm that does comply. PetroChina therefore operates in a jurisdiction where compliance with US sanctions is itself a legal offence.

The diplomatic arithmetic that keeps PetroChina off the SDN list is similar to Sinopec's: the US treats China's two largest state refiners as off-limits for secondary sanctions precisely because designating them would transform an economic pressure campaign into a full bilateral confrontation. Both companies function as a structural floor under Iran's oil revenues that US sanctions architecture cannot currently reach.